The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1887-11-24


relieve this disorder all narcotics, and
sedatives, and choral, and bromide of
potassium, and cocaine, and intoxicants
are used, but nothing is more important
that quiet spirit if we would win SOM
Violence. How is a man going to sleep
when he is in mind pursuing an enemy?
With what nervous twitch he will start
out of a dream! The new plan for corner
ing his foe will keep him wide awake
while the clock strikes eleven, twelve,
one, two, three, four. 1 give you an
unfaiing prescription for wakefulness:
Spend the evening hour srehearsing
your wrongs and the best way of
avenging them. Hold a convention of
friends on this subject in your parlor or
office at eight and nine o'clock.
Close the evening by writing
bitter letter expressing your senti-
ments. Take from the desk or pigeon
hole the papers in the case to refresh
your mind with your evenings meanness.
Then lie down and wait for the coming of
the day, and it will come before sleep
comes, or your sleep will be worried
quiescence, and, if you take the precau-
ton to lie fiat on your back, frightful
nightmare. Why not put bound to your
animosity? Why let your foes come into
the sanctities of your dormitory? Why
let these slanderers who have already
torn your reputa ton to pieces or injured
your business bend over your midnight
pillow and drive from you one of the
greatest blessings that God can Offer
sweet, refreshing, all-invigorating sleep.
Why not fence out your enemies by the
golden bars of the sunset? Why not
era hah ind bo, 10
cloud and say to them: ''Thus far and no
farther"
Many man and many a woman is hav-
ing the health Of body as we'll as the
health of soul eaten away by a malevo.
lent spirit. I have in time of re-
ligious awakening had persons night
after night come into the inquiry-room
and get no peace of soul. After awhile
l have bluntly asked her: sIs there not
some one against whom you have
hatred that you are not willing
to give up?" After little confusion she
has slightly whispered: "Yes" Then l
said to her "You will never find peace
with God as long as you retain that vlru-
lence."
A boy in Sparta, having stolen fox,
kept him under his coat, and though the
fox was gnawiny his vitals, he submitted
to it rather than expose his misdeed.
Many man with a smiling face has I'M
der his jacket an animosity that is gnaw-
ing away the strength Of his body and the
integrity Of his soul. Better get rid of
that hidden fox as soon as possible. There
are hundreds Of domestic circles where
that which is most needed is the spirit of
forgiveness. Brothers apart, and sisters
apart, and parents and children apart.
Solomon says brother offended is
harder to be won than strong city. Are
there not enough sacred memories of your
childhood to bring you together? The rab-
bins recount how that Nebuchadnezzar's
son had such spite against his father
that after he was dead he had his father
burned to ashes, and then put the ashes
into four sacks and tied them to four
eagles necks, which flew away in opposite
directions. And there are now domestic
antipathies that seem forever to have scat
tered all parental memories to the four
winds of Heaven. How far the eagles fly
with those sacred ashes! The hour of sun
down makes to that family no practical
suggestion. Thomas Carlyle, in his biog-
raphy of Frederick the Great, says the old
King was told by the confessor he
must be at peace with his enemies
il he wanted to enter Heaven Then
he said to his wife, the Queen: "Write
to your brother after I am dead that
l forgive him." Ro!off, the confessor,
said: "Her Majesty had better write to
him immediately" "No," said the King.
latter am dead; that will be safer" SO
he let the sun of his earthly existence go
down upon his wrath.
Again: We ought not to allow the sun
to set before forgiveness takes place, be-
cause we might not live to see another
day. And what If we should be ushered
into the presence of our Maker with
grudge upon our soul? The majority of
people depart this life in the night. Be-
tween eleven O'Clock p. IN. and three
O'Clock a. m. there is something in the at
mosphere which relaxes the grip which
the body has on the soul, and most of
people enter the next world through the
shadows of this world. Perhaps God may
have arranged it in this wav so as to make
the contrast the more glorious. / have
seen sunshiny days in this world
that must have been like the radi-
ance of Heaven. But as most people leave
the earth between shutdown and sunrise.
they quit this world at its darkest, and
Heaven, always bright, will be the bright
er for that contrast. Out of blackness into
irradiation. Shall we then leap over the
roseate bank of sunset into the favorite
hunting ground of disease and death.
carrying our animosities with us? Who
would want to confront his God, against
whom we have all done meaner things
than anybody has ever done against US,
carrying old grudges? How can we ex-
pect His forgiveness for the greater when
we are not willing to forgive others the
less! Napoleon was encouraged to under
take the crossing of the Alps because
Charlemange had previously crossed
them. And all this rugged path of for.
giveness bears the bleeding footsteps
of Him who conquered through
suffering, and we ought to be
willing to follow. On the
night of our departure from this life into
the next, our one plea will have to be for
mercy, and it will have to be offered in the
presence of Him who has said:
If you forgive not men their trespasses,
neither will your Heavenly Father forgive your
trespasses.
but" says some woman, "there is a
horrid creature that has so injured me
that rather than make up with her would
die first" Well, sister, you may take your
phntno--fcx.